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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22581046">Dinosaurs Roamed the Earth</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mugatu/pseuds/Mugatu'>Mugatu</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Like a House Falling in the Sea [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Grief, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, canon character almost death, canon character death, cw jared hopworth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 12:08:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,090</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22581046</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mugatu/pseuds/Mugatu</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Martin’s dress coat does little to protect him from the cold of Charmouth Beach in late November. The wind whipping off the sea penetrates his funeral clothes like knives, while his bare cheeks and nose have long since gone numb. His shoes are even more inadequate, plain black Oxfords that are still stiff with newness. He slips over the rocks and nearly twists his ankle over and over again, but all of that may as well be happening to someone else.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Like a House Falling in the Sea [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1622326</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>176</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Dinosaurs Roamed the Earth</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">Martin’s dress coat does little to protect him from the cold of Charmouth Beach in late November. The wind whipping off the sea penetrates his funeral clothes like knives, while his bare cheeks and nose have long since gone numb. His shoes are even more inadequate, plain black Oxfords that are still stiff with newness. He slips over the rocks and nearly twists his ankle over and over again, but all of that may as well be happening to someone else.</p><p class="p1"><em>They gave us goggles and rock hammers,</em> Jon told him over lunch last year, <em>but just looking was the best way to find them. I always found more than anyone else in my class, and I was the only one who never mistook a pseudo fossil for the real thing.</em></p><p class="p1">Martin’s eyes aren’t as sharp as Jon’s even if he knew exactly what it is he's looking for. Jon had explained it to him, sedimentary rocks a certain shade of gray, but every stone on this beach looks identical to the others.</p><p class="p1">Despite the weather Martin isn’t the only person on the beach. Through the eddy of fog he gets occasional glimpses of other hopeful fossil hunters dotting the shoreline, hunched over and as indistinguishable from each other as the stones. He keeps his distance; he doesn’t think he could handle any kind words from a well-meaning stranger. Couldn’t take a kindly old woman looking at his clothes and insisting he go somewhere to have a cup of tea and warm up.</p><p class="p1">Arianna Blackwood’s funeral had been sparsely attended. Aside from Martin and the vicar there were a few older ladies from the care home she’d made friends with and a cousin that Martin had met once or twice over the years. The only person Martin really knew was Ms. Jezierski, one of his mother’s long time nurses. She’d always had a soft spot for Martin, mostly due to the fact he would speak to her in Polish. He knew her English was better than his Polish but her eyes always grew soft and appreciative when he made the effort. She asked him once where he’d learned the language—his grammar was apparently shaky but his accent was flawless.</p><p class="p1"><em>My father was Polish,</em> Martin told her, that automatic awkwardness coming over him that always does when discussing the father that he barely remembered.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>A Polish ‘Blackwood’? He change his name when he came here?</em>
</p><p class="p1">Martin shook his head, cheeks burning, <em>He never married my Mum. And she changed my name after he left us</em>. Not by much, simply switched his middle and last names so that Martin Blackwood Krzỵzaniak became Martin K. Blackwood. Martin wished that the rest of what he’d inherited from his father could’ve been changed so easily.</p><p class="p1">She apologized profusely for bringing up such a sensitive subject, and after that if anything grew even softer toward him. She had been the one to call Martin weeks ago to tell him that his mother didn’t have long.</p><p class="p1"><em>Will she see me? </em>Martin asked, hating the plaintive note in his voice.</p><p class="p1">Ms. Jezierski hesitated, <em>I asked her. She didn’t…she did not say ‘no’.</em></p><p class="p1">Martin figured that was the best he could hope for. He requested leave, and wasn’t surprised at just how quickly Lukas granted it. <em>Of course, Martin,</em> he said in that paternal, affable way of his, <em>all the time you need. I understand if you need some time to yourself after as well.</em></p><p class="p1">On one of his mother’s last lucid days he took her hand and said, <em>Mum. I know you hate me. And I know why. I wish you didn’t. But I don’t hate you, and if you want me to leave until…until after, then I will.</em></p><p class="p1">She was too sick and in too much pain to deny it. Her face twisted, and she was finally able grit out, <em>No. Stay.</em></p><p class="p1">It wasn’t an apology and it wasn’t reconciliation, but it was something. Something that soured rather quickly as she deteriorated over the next weeks. She mistook him for his father as often as not—sometimes shrieking curses at him, sometimes weeping like a child and begging to know why he’d left her.</p><p class="p1"><em>I didn’t leave you</em>, Martin says, <em>I won’t ever.</em></p><p class="p1">When it was over Martin was calm until Ms. Jezierski asked if there was anyone she could call for him, a friend or family member. Martin opened his mouth and realized there was absolutely no one. He went completely to pieces then and there. When he gathered himself together he spun a story about an accident at work, and his three best friends had been killed.</p><p class="p1"><em>One of them was my…he and I were</em>, he couldn’t finish. What word could he use to describe what Jonathan Sims was to him? Boyfriend didn’t fit, neither did partner. The man Martin was in love with and who loved him back, who spent one of his last nights alive in Martin’s arms, the man who Martin had stupidly forgot tell that he loved him<em>.</em></p><p class="p1"><em>Oh you poor, sweet boy</em>, the nurse said, folding him into a tight hug. She said and did the same at the funeral, telling Martin to please call her if he needed anything, or just to let her know he was ok. He promised that he would, the lie falling easily from his lips.</p><p class="p1">He’d originally planned on staying the night after the funeral, but found he couldn’t spend another minute in Devon. He checked out of his hotel early, climbed into his hired car, and headed toward London. It was early in the afternoon and he could reach the city by nightfall if he didn’t stop.</p><p class="p1">When he saw the first sign for the A35 exit toward Dorchester he subconsciously switched to the left lane before without realizing what he was doing, and why. Then he remembered a conversation he had with Jon over lunch last year. Stopping in Dorchester on primary school trips to Lyme Regis and the surrounding area to go fossil hunting. Jon had grown animated while discussing it, a rare smile occasionally lighting up his face and making Martin’s heart flip in interesting ways. Then he remembered Jon’s fumbling, awkward confession to him the night before he left for the unknowing. How those lunches were the only times during that period where Jon was able to <em>relax,</em> only time he felt close to safe.</p><p class="p1">When Martin reached the exit minutes later he turned off without a second thought, stopping at a travel center to buy a map and guidebook. He’d forgotten both in the car, although as he stumbles across the beach he decides it’s just as well, they’d be soaked through if he tried to consult them.</p><p class="p1">Eventually Martin finds himself almost to the foot of the cliffs. They loom over him out of the fog, large and imposing.</p><p class="p1"><em>I used to get in so much trouble because I kept sneaking away toward the cliffs,</em> Jon told him. When was that, exactly? Martin thinks after the stitches had come out on Jon’s forearm. The stitches from that…<em>thing’s</em> hands, the thing that had trapped Martin and Tim for days. Terrifying days where he thought they would never get out, and always in the background the fear that something was out there trying to <em>kill</em> Jon while Martin was helpless to <em>do</em> anything. <em>The cliffs were dangerous, always a risk of being caught in a rockslide. But it was where the best fossils were, so the teachers had to practically tie me down to keep me away.</em></p><p class="p1">Martin keeps walking toward the cliffs. A rockslide doesn’t sound particularly frightening right now. Just the opposite; there’s something appealing about the idea of a flood of rocks tumbling down over him. Not burying him, but sweeping him out to sea to be lost in the fog.</p><p class="p1">Before he gets too far he looses his footing on yet another slippery rock and this time is unable to keep his balance. He stumbles to his knees, bright pain flaring across the left one as it strikes a rock. His lips curl in a snarl of pain, and he twists around to sit on the ground, legs stretched out in front of him. His arse is already numb from the cold and he barely feels it as the damp sand soaks through his trousers. He examines his knee gingerly—the trouser leg is torn, and Martin sees bright red welling out of the scrape. His entire knee aches, and when he tries to get to his feet a flare of pain makes him sit down again immediately.</p><p class="p1">Martin bows his head then, overcome. He doesn’t know why he’s here, what he hoped to accomplish. Just masochism? To go to a place Jon had loved, all the better to remember that he was dead? To torment himself with visions of Jon as a small child, bundled up in boots and and anorak with goggles over his eyes, clutching a rock hammer in one hand and scowling at the beach in concentration? Did Martin think that if he somehow found one and brought it to Jon’s hospital bed that would be the magic key to waking him up?</p><p class="p1"><em>This isn’t a fairytale, Martin. </em>That’s what Peter Lukas had said to him one night, materializing in the corner of the hospital room while Martin had his face buried in Jon’s shoulder. Martin jumped, going from struggling not to cry too struggling not to scream. Peter Lukas, as always, looked amused to have startled him, that banally pleasant and distance smile on his face.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Hello, Mr Lukas.</em>
</p><p class="p1"><em>Please, call me Peter. And, as I was saying: This isn’t a fairytale. He’s not Sleeping Beauty, and you’re not the handsome prince who will wake him up with true love’s kiss.</em> Peter’s voice was pleasant yet sad, as though he hated being the one to break this news to Martin.</p><p class="p1">Martin was torn between laughing at him and chucking a vase filled with desiccated flowers (delivered weeks before from a Steven Sims, the only acknowledgement from his family Martin ever saw) at Peter’s face. Instead of either one Martin gritted out, <em>I know that.</em></p><p class="p1"><em>Martin,</em> Peter said in a gentle, paternal voice. A wise father chastising a wayward son. <em>I keep tellinghe will probably never wake up. He’s gone, and the sooner you can accept that the sooner you can start looking at the big picture.</em></p><p class="p1">He was always going on about that, about the “big picture”, hinting at dire things afoot. Asking for Martin’s help, saying the only thing it would cost him would be others. Martin would have to be <em>alone,</em> and that included Jon. So far Martin has refused, although the offer is frighteningly tempting. All that’s left are Basira and Melanie, and to be frank…</p><p class="p1">He and Melanie had an epic shouting match not long before he left for Devon. Martin knows that in her own way she was <em>trying</em> to be kind, telling him he needed to stop spending all hours at the hospital and move on with his life. Help her figure out a way for them to get <em>out</em> of this place. <em>You can’t sit around waiting for him to wake up,</em> she said, <em>besides if he did I don’t think it would be a good thing. Not now.</em></p><p class="p1">Martin doesn’t remember his exact words; the ones he does are pretty bad. They included “repugnant, self-centered asshole” among others. Basira had to step in between them, and all three of them ending up shouting at each other before storming off to separate parts of the archives. He hadn’t been able to make himself apologize to either one of them before he left, nor they to him. But at the funeral home there was a simple bouquet of calla lilies with Melanie’s name on the accompanying card; and another card from the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain informing him that Basira Hussein had donated fifty pounds in honor of Arianna Blackwood.</p><p class="p1">But he doesn’t like them, and he knows the feeling is mutual. Martin knows it’s not anyone’s fault, knows that it’s because they’re all trapped together, that they’re all terrified, and they’re all <em>grieving.</em></p><p class="p1">But even if they weren’t Martin doesn’t think he could bring himself to like either of them, for irrational but simple reason that they’re not Tim or Sasha. He misses the latter in particular, and he <em>hates</em> the thing that took her. Not just for killing her, but for tainting every memory he has of his friend. He can’t remember the person who actually teased him over lunch (<em>I think you’ve gone a bit soft for the boss since he let you camp out in the archive) </em>or helping him with research to avoid a scolding with a wink and a smile (<em>you’re good at this, Martin, Elias wouldn’t have picked you otherwise</em>). Instead all he can remember is the <em>Thing</em> that murdered her, crudely papered over the actual person. He’s heard the tape that Jon found, the one that still has her voice, a voice he does not recognize. She’d saved their lives when Prentiss attacked, had <em>died</em> trying to save them again. Had been worried about even <em>Elias</em> surviving. Meanwhile the smug bastard had seen it all coming and done <em>nothing</em>.</p><p class="p1">Nothing but watch.</p><p class="p1"><em>Oh Martin,</em> Elias said after he broke the news that Tim and Jon were dead, <em>you really should’ve gone after him yesterday. If you had something to say to him.</em></p><p class="p1">Martin had to go to the men’s room to throw up after that. Martin had already known that Elias had been watching them that night. He’d known even before Elias had thrown Jon’s words back to him earlier, <em>Such loyalty to someone who really treats you very badly.</em> He wondered if Elias expected him to be shocked or thrown off by that revelation. He knew that Elias paid Jon far more attention than he did any of the others, that he had <em>plans</em> for him. That there was no way his attention wasn’t glued to his Archivist every second before the Unknowing. Martin’s learned to live with being watched. Elias might be watching him right now for all Martin knows.</p><p class="p1">Even with that thought—<em>especially </em>with that thought—Martin feels more alone than he ever has in his life.</p><p class="p1">Eventually Martin realizes he needs to get up. His knee throbs painfully as he pushes himself to his feet, but he thinks he should be able to hobble back to his car. He glances down at where he was sitting, and almost misses the rock a few shades darker than the ones beside it. When he takes another look he spots the rock’s distinct spiral pattern.</p><p class="p1">His knee yells at him as he bends down, and his fingertips are so numb he has trouble picking the rock up. He brings it to his face, brushing the sand and grift off what is most definitely a fossil. A perfectly formed spiral, the remnants of some type of mollusk millions of years dead. Martin curls his fingers around it. He doesn’t notice the tears that track down his cheeks. Martin isn’t stupid, he knows he’s neither handsome nor a prince, and that there’s no happy ending here. Jon won’t wake up and marvel at this fossil, ask him where he got it, or add it to the collection he kept in an old glass vase in his flat. The vase that is in Martin’s flat now; they’d cleaned out Jon’s place months ago, packed his clothes and furniture up into storage. Martin kept the vase along with the photo album where Jon stuck his antique postcards. He keeps both tucked away in a box in his closet, unable to make himself look at either one.</p><p class="p1">He’ll still bring this fossil to Jon, place it at his bedside next to the dusty flowers from someone who doesn’t really care about him. Resolved, he limps back toward the carpark, clutching the fossil in his fist so tightly that when he eventually lets go he’ll find it imprinted in his flesh.</p><p class="p1">****************************************************</p><p class="p1">When Martin returns to the Institute Basira and Melanie are careful with him, and he is just as careful. Melanie in particular—which surprises him at first before he really thinks about it. Watching his mother suffer and die had been hard enough while she was in hospital being made as comfortable as possible by a caring staff. Just thinking about his mother suffering the same fate as Melanie’s father is enough to make him sick. And he knows from some things that Melanie’s said that her relationship with her father was very different than the one he had with his mother.</p><p class="p1"><em>Little moth,</em> <em>he called me, </em>Melanie said with a broken laugh, <em>because no matter how often I got burned I still rushed toward the fire if there was something in it I wanted.</em></p><p class="p1">On his fourth day back he makes a decision. He takes out a notepad and starts to write out a few ideas, some areas of research. He spends most of the morning working on it, crossing out ideas before scribbling down new ones. After putting it off for as long as he gathers up his notes and heads toward Melanie’s office, pausing at the canteen. He makes two cups of tea—one with lots of milk but no sugar, just how Melanie prefers it. He pauses when he reaches her closed door, steels himself, and calls out her name.</p><p class="p1">Basira is the one to open the door. She says nothing, just glances down at the two mugs in his hands and raises her eyebrows.</p><p class="p1">Martin flushes, “Sorry. I didn’t know you were in here, I wanted to talk to Melanie. Do you want this cup, I can make myself another—“</p><p class="p1">“S’alright, I don’t feel like one right now. And you take it with too much sugar for me,” Basira says, stepping aside so Martin can come in.</p><p class="p1">Melanie is sat behind her desk and she looks like hell. Dark circles under her eyes, unwashed hair, and pallid skin. He gives her a cautious smile and sets the tea on her desk, and she thanks him stiffly.</p><p class="p1">All three of them are silent for a few minutes, before Martin composes himself and says, “I wanted to say thank you. For the flowers,” he glances at Basira, “And thank you for the donation, and the card.”</p><p class="p1">“You’re welcome,” Melanie says, voice still stiff, then, “I’m sorry.”</p><p class="p1">“Yeah,” he says, knowing it wasn’t just a rote expression of sympathy for his loss, “I’m sorry as well.”</p><p class="p1">“Have been to see him since you got back?” Melanie says. She winces; “I just meant—“</p><p class="p1">“A few times, yeah,” Martin says, “I don’t plan on stopping.” He flips open his notebook, paging toward the end, “But I’ve been thinking about—“</p><p class="p1">Before he can finish this sentence the floor explodes beneath their feet.</p><p class="p1">Martin is thrown out of his chair to the ground, a shower of splinters and sawdust raining down over him. He can taste blood in his mouth, he thinks he’s bitten into his tongue.</p><p class="p1">Shapes are coming up from the wreckage of the floor. Shapes that don’t make any sense, shapes that are so twisted and <em>wrong</em> Martin isn’t even afraid at first, just confused.</p><p class="p1">He sees figures with stalk-like limbs, necks stretched out unnaturally long. At the end of the necks instead of a head is a lump of flesh, eyeless, noseless, just a gash that could only be called a mouth because of the teeth.</p><p class="p1">More figures, masses of confusing lumps of joints and limbs, rib cages jutting out of places rib cages weren’t meant to be.</p><p class="p1">Standing in the center of them is a figure more grotesque than the others, a horrific mound of twisting limbs that Martin can hear cracking wetly. It’s covered in veins that writhe beneath the gray skin like worms, and at that thought Martin—</p><p class="p1">He’s not sure what happens after that. Later there will be a gap in his memory of events that try as he might he can’t piece together. One instant he’s staring at the <em>things</em> that have burst through the door, the next world is coming at him in flashes.</p><p class="p1">He’s throwing the trapdoor to the tunnels wide open.</p><p class="p1">He’s running through blackness like a panicked animal, crashing into walls.</p><p class="p1">He sees a sickly light pouring out of an open yellow door illuminating figure stood in front with long hands. It address him in a familiar voice—a woman’s voice, but it’s the same tone as the creature that called itself Michael. “Oh dear, the Archivist leaves and things just fall to pieces, I see.”</p><p class="p1">He hears her laughter echoing behind him as he keeps running.</p><p class="p1">Blackness again. He smells the acidic, metallic scent of concentrated CO2 and he staggers.</p><p class="p1">He’s alone in the tunnels. He looks behind him, sees blackness and can’t hear Jon’s pained whimpering as he stumbles on his hurt leg, can't hear Tim's incongruously cheerful voice telling the where to go. Martin had left them, he thought they were right behind him.</p><p class="p1">“<em>Jon!” </em>Martin screams out, <em>“Tim! Jon! Jon! Tim!”</em></p><p class="p1"><em>I left them, I left </em>him, Martin thinks wildly. It hurts, it hurts so much, being separated, Martin had just realized over their heart-to-heart that the annoying <em>crush</em> he had on Jon might be something <em>more. Martin</em> just spent the past hours thinking the worms had gotten Tim, then the relief had come over that Tim was ok, Sasha had reached him in time and they’d both escape, Sasha had been the one to pull the fire alarm--</p><p class="p1">“<em>Tim! Jon! Jon! Sasha!” </em>Martin screams out so loudly something seems to tear in his throat. It’s dark, he can’t see, he’s in endless dark corridors, only Tim isn’t with him this time. They were running, running away from the stretched out Sasha-thing that had exploded up from the floor, and Martin had turned around and <em>Tim and Jon weren’t there.</em></p><p class="p1">He loses his footing and crashes to his knees, pain flaring across the left one, still bruised and tender from falling on the beach. The beach he combed for fossils, desperate to find one to bring to Jon’s hospital room. But he’d run and when he looked back Jon wasn’t there.  He'd thought Jon was right behind, he <em>had been</em> <em>right behind him</em>, in the sea of early morning commuters, and Elias is hissing that Martin should have chased after him, but he hadn’t, he’d run, he’d looked behind him and Jon was gone, it plays in his head over and over again—</p><p class="p1">He comes back to himself in bits and pieces. He’s not sure how long it takes for him to realize where he is and when he is, over a year past Prentiss’ attack on the Institute and four months after Jon spent the night at his flat. Tim and Sasha are dead, and Jon may as well be. There are people he’d left behind, he can’t think of their names, all that comes to mind is a vase of calla lilies in a funeral home.</p><p class="p1">“Melanie,” Martin moans out, “Basira.” He’d run for it and left them behind. He’s in the tunnels and it’s too dark to see anything.</p><p class="p1">He starts to push himself to his feet, the flair of pain in his knee making him plop back down, seated with his back against the wall and legs stretched out in front of him.</p><p class="p1">There’s another moment where time seems to skip, and Martin thinks he must’ve fainted or, as absurd as it sounds, fallen asleep. When he opens his eyes that light is there again spilling out from an open yellow door. The same woman is leaning against the door frame, her impossibly long and sharp fingers tapping idly against the wood.</p><p class="p1">“Hello again,” she says, smiling a smile that distorts her face.</p><p class="p1">Martin is too tired to be afraid. He just stares at her numbly, waiting for her to attack, to slice him to bits with her knife-like fingers or fling him through her doorway.</p><p class="p1">“You don’t remember me, do you?” she asks.</p><p class="p1">Martin shakes his head, “I…I saw you…just now”</p><p class="p1">“When you were running through the tunnels like a headless chicken?” she shakes her head, “That was hours ago. I meant before that. When you went through my doorway. You tried to help Helen, called out to her.” Tap, tap, tap, go those fingers against the door. “Hmmm,” says the thing that was once Helen Richardson, “Honestly, I don’t often let people leave my doorway. Not sure why I let you go, when I was Michael.”</p><p class="p1">Tap. Tap. Tap.</p><p class="p1">“What do you want?” Martin asks, voice dull.</p><p class="p1">“Basira asked me to look for you,” Helen says.</p><p class="p1">“Basira…” Martin says, “Is she…is Melanie…are they…those things…”</p><p class="p1">That twisted smile again, “Oh <em>yes.</em> Those things are…I don’t think they’ll be troubling you again. Melanie saw to that. I helped clean up. Now I’m trying to decide whether to help you back or just…take you.”</p><p class="p1">Martin can’t begin to care enough to feel afraid, “Get on with it, then. I’m tired.”</p><p class="p1">“Hmmm,” she says, “No, I think you’re marked by something else. Besides,” her mouth stretches even wider, “The Archivist was rather fond of you. He and I were <em>friends</em>. I think I’ll show you the way out.”</p><p class="p1">****************************************************</p><p class="p1">Two days later Martin walks through the turnstiles at Stockwell, and instead of the Victoria Line that will take him to the Institute he heads toward the Northern Line. In the past four months he’s yet to be able to walk down the steps without imagining seeing Jon stood on the platform. Can’t stop himself for craning his neck, looking for a certain gray hoodie even as he boards the train, even as the train pulls away from the station.</p><p class="p1">He gets off at Tower Bridge and walks the rest of the way to the hospital. Signs the visitor log, and takes the familiar walk to Jon’s room. Stands in front of the door for a long time before drawing in his breath and walking in.</p><p class="p1">Jon looks the same as when Martin saw him last, the same he’s looked since he first came here. His hair is a little longer, and Martin remembers waking up beside him on a morning that feels more and more like a dream with each passing day. Remembers cupping Jon’s cheek and thinking that he needed a haircut. Martin will never get used to seeing Jon like this. Chest not moving, his entire body has the same unnatural stillness of a corpse. He looks frozen in time seconds after his death.</p><p class="p1">“Hi, Jon,” Martin says. He takes a shaky breath, “How are you?”</p><p class="p1">Jon doesn’t respond, obviously. Martin gives a short laugh, “Yeah. Yeah, same here. It’s…it’s bad all over, y’know? I’m…I’m getting by, I suppose. Um. Basira’s keeping things ticking over—“</p><p class="p1"><em>No, you did the right thing, </em>Basira told him as he tried to apologize for running,<em> getting out of the way, didn’t have to worry about protecting you on top of everything else.</em></p><p class="p1"><em>“—</em>And Melanie is…well…Melanie is Melanie.”</p><p class="p1">She hadn’t accepted his apology for running. <em>You called me self-centered. At least I don’t run away.</em></p><p class="p1">“Anyway,” Martin continues, “Just thought I’d stop by. Check in and uh, y’know. See how you’re, um—“</p><p class="p1">His eyes fall to Jon’s bedside table. Someone has cleaned up, thrown the desiccated flowers away. The fossil Martin brought him is still there, however. Ammonite. That’s what the creatures were called that left these little spiraled shells behind.</p><p class="p1">“We really you, Jon. Everything’s…it’s bad. I. I don’t know how much longer we can do this. We-<em>I </em>need you. And I, I know that you’re not…I know there’s no way to<em>. </em>But we need you, Jon. Jon please.” He lets out a wet breath. <em>I love you,</em> he thinks but does not say, the words freezing on his lips, “<em>Please. </em>If there’s anything left in you that can still see us, or, or some power you’ve still got, or, or, something, <em>anything, </em>please!” <em>Come back. Come back to me, you promised you would, you said you wouldn’t die.</em></p><p class="p1"><em>“</em>Please,” Martin says, and his voice breaks, “I…I <em>can’t…”</em></p><p class="p1">His phone vibrates in his jacket pocket, startling him. He takes it out and sees that P. Lukas is calling him. Of course he is, Martin is running late for their meeting. He gets up and moves to the corner of the room, turning his back to Jon’s still form and gathering himself. When he answers his phone he’s composed, business-like. Listens distantly as Peter chides him for his tardiness. Asks if he’s having second thoughts, if Martin needs to visit Jon one more time.</p><p class="p1">“I’m,” Martin says, “I’m actually with him now. You were right.” Peter had always been right. This wasn’t a fairytale, and Jon won’t be coming back to him. If it were possible he would’ve done it by now, would’ve kept his promise.</p><p class="p1">Martin asks if the others will be safe if helps with whatever Peter’s plans are, even though he’s made his decision before he hears Peter’s gentle reassurances.</p><p class="p1">Martin hangs up. His back is to Jon when he says, “Sorry. Goodbye, Jon. Sleep well.” He doesn’t think he can make himself walk out if he turns for one last look. Again the words <em>“I love you” </em>freeze in throat. He doesn’t think he can make himself walk away after saying that either. Besides, it wouldn’t count. Jon’s gone. Martin should’ve chased Jon down that morning and told him instead of assuming they’d have the rest of their lives to say it. Should’ve held Jon tight and refused to let go.</p><p class="p1"><em>You did the right thing, getting out of the way, didn’t have to worry about protecting you on top of everything else, </em>Basira said.</p><p class="p1"><em>The only reason I haven’t froze up is because you aren’t coming. </em>One of the last things Jon had said to him.</p><p class="p1">They were both wrong. Martin wishes he’d gone with Jon and died beside him. Barring that he should’ve stayed put when the Flesh attacked instead of legging it. Least it would finally be done with, least he wouldn’t be waiting for the next attack. As Martin walks out of Jon’s hospital room for the last time it’s with the knowledge that he probably won’t survive working for Lukas.</p><p class="p1">It’s an appealing thought.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I based the location of Jon's hospital on London Bridge Private Hospital.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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